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Thanks to everyone who sent us feedback on the SmartLid concept. You might note that the above rendering has changed a bit. However, the basic spec's haven't: Temperature range: 32F - 120F Accuracy: +/- 0.5 F Fahrenheit or Celsius display Elapsed time to 24 hours (for people doing really crazy stand development.) Battery powered Water resistant keypad Average temperature function User calibration function Note the buttons aren't labeled since we're still working out the details. We need to get the display right the first time; changing it later is expensive. Same for the keypad. Regarding those details, several suggestions were...

UPDATE: we've abandoned the SP-457A project. It had handling issues and the production cost was soaring, especially considering the size of the market. Check out our SP-8x10, it can handle two sheets of 5x7, 13x18, glass plates etc... A while back I accidentally bought a Kodak #33A 5x7 view camera. I say accidentally because the Speed Graphic I went to look at turned out to be in rough shape, but he also had the Kodak. I just couldn't resist the beauty of this old classic.I figured I'd pull the prototype of the SP-457 processing tank out of storage, tweak it...

A short course on product development centered around the SP-445 film tank.

So last night I started to process some film and realized that the tank I usually use was still damp. So I grabbed another from the shelf over the sink and loaded it up (using my latest dark box of course.) I filled it with SP-76EC, squeezed it and started agitating. It dripped. I re-squeezed. It still dripped. I thought about putting it back in the dark box and swapping lids but it wasn't leaking that badly, so I kept going. I figured the O-ring was worn out since it was one of the very first tanks built. (Kind of...

It's not a power washer. Some people mistakenly believe that washing film under running water is like using a power washer on their driveway. It's not. The running water is not blasting away the residual thiosulfate (fixer). The thiosulfate is actually embedded in the emulsion and can only be removed by diffusion (or dispersion, we'll let the chemists argue over the difference). While the chemistry behind this gets really complex really quickly, the concept is simple. It's more like soaking a dirty pan in the sink to remove the baked-on grease. Basically, the universe likes things in equilibrium. Thus the concentration...